


Execution

by towards



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betrayal has never sat well with him. This is all he can take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Execution

"That’s a lie."

What is he supposed to say to that. The men before him - men who had been with him for decades, good men, men he had relied upon time and time again in the heat of the moment - showing him official Renegade IDs. Men he had placed his faith in, men whom he had shared drinks with, men who had witnessed him at his very weakest…

His enemies.

"Forcystus, please -," one begins, and Forcystus can’t stop his jaw from clenching. Smothers down the urge to correct him, to throw him down and teach him  _respect_. “We know you’re a reasonable man. We know your goals are selfless! That’s - that’s why we’re  _here._ If it were anyone else, we wouldn’t say anything - but this has become an emergency. Everyone is in danger - Yggdrasill isn’t what he says he is! His goals aren’t-“

“ _That is a lie_.”

The four men straighten, but do not go for their weapons. They trust him implicitly, trust that he is kind and rational - they trust he will remain the same man who had spent hours digging them out of a cave-in. They trust he’ll be the same man who avenged a handful of fallen foot soldiers, soldiers whose names he knew. They trust that he will be as he always is.

He is not. He begins to pace.

"You come to me, revealing yourselves as traitors, spouting lies about our Lord, and expect me to," he pauses, looking at them - almost beseechingly, a chance for them to take it back.

They do not.

"To throw away all that I have worked for on the word of admitted  _deceivers?_ " He finishes, quietly, calmly. Still pacing the length of the room.

"It’s for the sake of the worlds!" Finnian, short stature with sandy hair and rounded ears. Human-passing, a mother’s boy - he’d lost her in a flood. A sea-side boy, born and raised in Palmacoasta, he’d requested Forcystus’ ranch  _specifically_  because somehow the tales of his heroism had lingered to this day. How much of that was true? “Lord Forcystus, you’ve been  _deceived_. Yggdrasill-“

"I will hear  **no ill of Lord Yggdrasill!"**

The men take a step back at the force of his voice.

Forcystus had been… unwell. Unwell since the death of Magnius, worse with the demise of Kvar, and distant since word of Rodyle’s betrayal reached their ears. Paranoid wasn’t the right word for it - he still treated them all with kindness, gave special attention to the refugees from Magnius’ ranch

(they could hear him pressing for details, they could hear the thirst for vengeance in his voice, how meetings with Pronyma would suddenly go sour when he demanded to know the location of those that had killed his comrade

most of the half-elves under his care do not know what it’s like to have a childhood friend, let alone to lose one after centuries of togetherness

they don’t talk about how he treats that palmacoastan girl or how he’s taken to drinking wine in his study with the curtains drawn and the door bolted)

and he still maintained a respectful distance from Iselia, but he was slipping.

This was the first time they had seen him crack.

Still, they try again.

Ceres stood tall, doing all he could not to shake when that furious red gaze seized his own. “The Age of Half-Elves is a lie. You are being  _deceived_ , Forcystus. If we use the reactors then we can stop the tree from spreading further and destroying more of the-“

And those are the last words he manages.

The man’s arm canon comes down hard on the back of his head. The other two shriek, a splatter of blood staining their faces crimson. Forcystus is far from calm, he’s trembling with barely restrained rage. 

"I will do you the honor of not making an example out of you to the others," he says quietly, and that’s the last they hear.

The others come in and clean up the bodies. 

Forcystus wipes his cannon clean with serenity. When the communicator flares to life and Pronyma greets him with the critial stare, he says nothing. Nothing at all.  Lord Yggdrasill says to protect the reactor at all cost - the Renegades are coming, chances are Lloyd and his friends will be as well. 

He orders the evacuation without much care. Chaos breaks out - host bodies escape, some transform, some are simply trampled. He doesn’t care for any of it, he simply tells those that wish to make their last stand for Lord Yggdrasil to remain and those that have something to live for outside of the cause to go.

They’ve seen too many ranches crumble. Forcystus is the second strongest of all the cardinals (some argue that he is  _the_  strongest, but it’s an argument that no one wants to get into) but he is wounded and grieving and hasn’t been in his right mind for a while now. So some leave, they gather their friends and family and escort the refugees that they’ve been housing out and away.

And Forcystus waits.

Because it is not a lie.

And he is strong.

And he will not allow these humans to rip away his people’s chance at paradise. Not again.

**Author's Note:**

> Forcystus always struck me as the Cardinal that was closest to the men in his ranch. They address him informally in the Japanese version, and he goes after Iselia in vengeance after the death of two footsoldiers. To know that there were Renegades within his ranks would be devastating.
> 
> I'm not really sure why I banged this out, other than to me it sounded like it wasn't the first time he was told that the Age of Half-Elves was a lie and he would go to any lengths to deny it. When you meet Forcystus for the final time, he just seems so out of it and his ranch is in such a disarray, it's just sort of sad in this terrible, horrible way. Forcystus is far from helpless, he's pretty far from pitiable, but I can't help but feel bad for the way he died and how far he'd fallen.


End file.
